A within-subject analysis of stimulus control therapy with severe sleep-onset insomnia.

Stimulus control, a behavioral technique designed to reduce sleep difficulties, has been demonstrated to be effective when compared with control procedures. These comparisons, mainly involving between-subjects analyses, have neglected the contribution of the stimulus control procedure to the production of clinically significant amelioration of sleep dysfunction. In contrast, the present within-subjects experiment was conducted to assess the capability of stimulus control to produce clinically relevant reductions in multiple measures of sleep disturbance. A comparison with the credible placebo procedure indicated that the stimulus control techniques reduced subjects' sleep onset latency to a mean latency below 30 min per week. Additionally, sedative-hypnotic usage was greatly reduced.